Food For London Now: Thank you for your food donations – but it’s not just NHS doctors and nurses who need your kindness

Lucy Young

There is no culinary creation that can rival a slice of buttered toast at 3am on a hospital night shift. The bread should be cheap and white, the butter should come in a little foil package, squeezed out to melt on the toast, and it should be served on a piece of paper towel, accompanied with a cup of strong tea and a pile of medical paperwork.

After six or seven hours on your feet, running around the too-quiet corridors of a busy NHS hospital, dealing with admissions and emergencies and everything in-between, such a meal is a little slice of heaven.

Snacks power the healthcare workforce. Over the last few weeks, up and down the country in wards and emergency departments and admission units, the gifts have been arriving. Krispy Kreme Donuts in Barnet, Easter eggs at the Nightingale, chocolate chip cookies in Oxford, and Dominos pizza everywhere, have been sent in by an extraordinarily grateful and kind public, all to support the frontline professionals if the NHS who are working so hard.

And it is so gratefully received. There is little that can buoy you up more on an on-call shift than the gift of a slice of pizza, or a donut. The work during the coronavirus pandemic is especially hard. Hours wearing hot, stuffy personal protective equipment, caring for very sick patients, the constant vigilance to maintain good infection control. Such gifts are all the more appreciated in this epidemic, and everyone in healthcare is grateful for your kindness.

Healthcare workers are the most visible group in need of support during this crisis, but I worry that it is all too easy to ignore those who are suffering the most. In the hospital itself, the gifts are commonly sent to the intensive care unit, the doctors’ mess, and the emergency department - the areas the public are most aware of.

But most of the work treating people unwell with COVID is on the general wards and in the medical admissions units. While the doctors and nurses are the face of the healthcare response, and are the recipients of many of these gifts, the amazing work of healthcare assistants, of porters, and of cleaners is all too easy to ignore.

These staff groups are working exceptionally hard, and exposed to many of the same risks, while working for much lower pay, often in insecure jobs outsourced to private contractors. Within the hospital, these groups are far more in need of a donut than me.

And then let’s look beyond the hospital. GPs have fundamentally altered the way they work in a matter of weeks, and are providing exceptional care keeping people out of hospital. Carers are more often than not low-paid, with little job security, and poor access to PPE, yet are risking their safety travelling from house to house caring for the most vulnerable in our society. They too could do with a slice of pizza after a gruelling day’s work – or some help with food at home if circumstances are leaving them short.

Now look at your own neighbourhood. While healthcare workers still have their jobs, their income, and their vocation, others in our communities find themselves furloughed or unemployed, all due to a virus outside our control.

Those on the financial edge before the epidemic now teeter and fall. Those in poor or overcrowded housing, without ready access to outside space, suffer most from the consequences of lockdown. I’d rather go without my box of chocolates if it meant that the most vulnerable in our communities could gain some extra support. That is why campaigns like the Evening Standard's Food For London Now appeal is so important – it raises awareness and allows meals and groceries to be provided where they are most needed via groups like The Felix Project.

So, next Thursday night, as you stand by your doorstep, or lean out your window, to clap for us in the NHS, please look around at your neighbours. Think of the foodbanks, the kids on free school meals, the newly unemployed. And if you are able to make a donation of some kind, a gift, or a treat or cash, that’s great. Such generosity will always be appreciated by doctors, but maybe we aren’t the most in need right now.

  • Dr Michael FitzPatrick, co-chair of the trainees committee at the Royal College of Physicians

Our campaign in a nutshell

WHAT ARE WE DOING? We have launched Food For London Now, an appeal to fund the delivery of food to poor, elderly and vulnerable Londoners who are unable to afford food or are confined to home and at high risk of losing their lives from catching the coronavirus. Monies raised go to our appeal partner, The Felix Project, London’s biggest food surplus distributor, which is part of a co-ordinated food distribution effort taking place across London. The appeal is under the auspices of the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund and run by the London Community Foundation, which manages the Fund.

HOW DOES THE SCHEME WORK? The London Food Alliance has been set up by the Felix Project together with the capital’s two other largest food surplus distributors — FareShare and City Harvest — to pick up nutritious surplus food from suppliers and deliver it in bulk to community hubs in each borough.

HOW WILL FOOD GET TO PEOPLE? Each borough will create hubs to receive the surplus food, divide it into food parcels and deliver them to the doorstep of vulnerable Londoners.

WHO WILL GET FOOD? Boroughs are in touch with local charities, foodbanks and community centres as well as the government to ascertain who is most vulnerable and in need.

HOW HAVE THE FOOD REDISTRIBUTORS DIVIDED UP LONDON? Felix is responsible for co-ordinating surplus supply across 14 boroughs, FareShare 12 and City Harvest 7.